Tesco has announced the winners of its 2026 Agri-tech Challenge, highlighting two very different technologies aimed at tackling some of the practical challenges facing British agriculture. AgroSustain has won the early-stage category with its crop-protection technology, while Herd Advance has taken the late-stage category with an automated livestock management system. But behind the two winners is a wider story about how quickly agricultural innovation can move from an interesting idea to something that farmers can actually use.
AgroSustain, the Swiss agri-tech company, has developed Tornado, an edible sealing technology that creates an invisible physical barrier on the surface of plants. The technology is designed to help crops cope with environmental stresses such as drought and salinity, with the potential to reduce crop losses and reliance on conventional treatments. As part of the prize, AgroSustain will receive fast-track introductions to Tesco’s supplier network and an opportunity to trial the technology with one of its supply-chain partners.
The late-stage winner, Herd Advance, is taking a different approach. Its Stockman system captures livestock information such as weight, water intake and temperature in real time as cattle drink, while allowing farmers to remotely draft and move animals between pens. The technology is designed to reduce manual handling while giving producers better information about animal health and performance. Herd Advance will receive specialist mentoring and an opportunity to trial Stockman within Tesco’s beef supply chain.
What makes this year’s challenge particularly relevant to the wider food industry is the evidence from Tesco’s annual Greenprint survey. Among 151 UK farmers surveyed, 58% said they had introduced an innovation during the past year, compared with 46% in 2025. At the same time, 76% said getting innovation onto farms remains challenging or very challenging. A further 72% said government and retailers should make more funding available for innovative farm technology, while 48% wanted subsidised opportunities to trial new approaches.
For supermarket supply chains, this creates an important link between agricultural technology and food security. Innovation does not necessarily fail because farmers do not see its potential; the bigger difficulty can be proving that a technology works in real farming conditions, that it delivers an economic benefit and that there is a practical route to adoption.
Tesco’s challenge is designed to address part of that gap by connecting innovators with suppliers and providing opportunities for real-world trials. The 2026 competition also introduced separate pathways for technologies at Technology Readiness Levels 4–6 and 7+, reflecting the different needs of earlier-stage and more developed innovations.
For supermarket buyers and food companies, the list of finalists is also worth watching because it shows where agricultural innovation is heading next — from crop resilience and livestock management to technologies designed to improve efficiency, sustainability and food production. The winners may receive the immediate attention, but the wider group of innovators provides a useful picture of the technologies that could eventually reach farms and, further down the supply chain, the supermarket shelf.
Tesco says this year’s finalists presented their technologies to an expert judging panel at its Welwyn Garden City headquarters on 24 September. The competition is now in its ninth year and was previously known as the Agri-T Jam.
The bigger question for the food industry is therefore not simply which technologies win competitions, but which innovations can successfully make the journey from demonstration to everyday farming. That is where the next stage of agricultural technology will ultimately be tested.
